_Syam_ is a Kingdom contiguous to _Pegu_, a part of the _East-Indies_; And, as the people are included within the burning Zone, therefore far from being fair; yet are tall of stature, very strong and valiant, and generally so strait, that few are found among them crooked. Formerly they were much given to _Sodomy_: to prevent which, ’twas wisely ordered, (though strangely) that the males as soon as born, should have a bell of gold (and in it a dry’d Adders tongue) put through the prepuce and flesh. When the desire of copulation stimulates any of them, he presents himself to some expert Midwives, who advise him to drink _Opium_, or some such somniferous potion; which having done in their presence, he falls asleep; during which interval, they remove the bell, and apply to the orifice from whence it was taken, an unguent, which affords a speedy cure: then is he free to make use of such as his fancy leads him to. The young Girls are served in a worse manner; for as soon as born, their _Pudenda_ is sowed up, and only a small _foramen_, or passage left, as an _aquaduct_: about eight or nine she is unstitcht; & it is as great a rarity, to finde a pure Virgin here at ten years old, as to finde a Maid at sixteen, in most places of _France_, or its neighbouring Countreys. And that these young leacherous Fry maybe capable of that employment they are destinated unto, they have potions given them to drink which have the efficacious power as to distend their _muliebria_ to such a capacity, as that (if their bells were not withdrawn) their males would finde too easie an entrance. The women here (still the more to allure the men from that detestable & unnatural act of _Sodomy_) go naked; (as little a novelty in these parts, as for _Irish_ and _Scotch_ to wash their cloaths with their feet, their coats, smock and all tuckt up about their middles, though twenty men stand by as (deriding) spectators): I say, they go naked to their middles, where the better sort are covered with a fine transparent Taffata or dainty Lawn, which by a cunning device is so made to open, that as they pass along, the least air discovers all, to all mens immodest views. Their Priest, which they call _Tallapoi_, are seeming very zealously superstitious: they somewhat incline to Mahometanism; for they pretend they will not drink wine, being forbidden it by their Law, yet are abominable hypocrites: for, though they wear a sheep-skin with the wool thereon, not suffering any hair to be on their bodies, and in shew lead a chaste life, yet I found the contrary; as you shall understand by what past between one of them and my self. I being on shore with our Ships crew, I chanc’d to walk abroad, carrying with me a bottle of _Spanish_-wine: As I entred into a Wood, intending not to adventure too far, there came to me one of these _Tallapoi_ or Priests, in the habit aforesaid, with a horn about his neck, resembling a Sowgelder’s, but